TOPICS

The Third Research Seminar of the College of International Relations in 2014 was held on the 8th of June 2014, at Koshinkan Room 733. Associate Prof. Thomas W. FRENCH, a specialist of Japanese history, politics and relationships between Japan and the US, gave a report on his research to date, focusing on his recently released book National Police Reserve: The Origin of Japan's Self Defense Forces. Starting from a review of previous research on the NPR, he highlighted a general trend to classify the force as an army on the basis of very little evidence. In order to address these shortcomings, he presented a large amount of primary documentary sources, principally collected from the National Diet Library Tokyo. Subsequently, he examined the international origins of the NPR, arguing that Cold War concerns, the Constabulary model, and US debates about security, played a role in the creation of the force. Moreover, he took the domestic origins of the force into consideration, providing an analysis of the Japanese government's conceptions of security, the perceived threat to Japan's internal safety, and the catalysing role played by the Korean war. Furthermore, he took the character, organisation and operational aspects of the NPR into consideration, along with its interactions with former Imperial Army and Navy officers and the Japanese civil police. The presentation concluded with an examination of the evolution of the force into the National Safety Force (NSF) in 1952, highlighting the continuities between the NPR and the Self Defense Forces.